UPI Almanac for Friday, July 7, 2017

Today is Friday, July 7, the 188th day of 2017 with 177 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning star is Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include Austrian composer Gustav Mahler in 1860; Russian-born painter Marc Chagall in 1887; film director George Cukor in 1899; baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige in 1906; bandleader Doc Severinsen in 1927 (age 90); singer Mary Ford in 1924; historian and author David McCullough in 1933 (age 84); former Beatle Ringo Starr in 1940 (age 77); film critic Joel Siegel in 1943; actor Joe Spano in 1946 (age 71); actor Shelley Duvall in 1949 (age 68); actor Billy Campbell in 1959 (age 58); comedian Jim Gaffigan in 1966 (age 51); figure skater Michelle Kwan in 1980 (age 37); singer Sevyn Streeter in 1986 (age 31); Fifth Harmony singer Ally Brooke in 1993 (age 24).

On this date in history:

In 1846, U.S. Navy Commodore J.D. Sloat proclaimed the annexation of California by the United States.

In 1865, four people convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln were hanged in Washington.

In 1898, U.S. President William McKinley signed a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the annexation of Hawaii by the United States.

In 1930, construction began on the Giant Boulder Dam, which in 1947 was renamed the Hoover Dam.

In 1946, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) became the first American to be canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor was chosen by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to become the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. She was unanimously approved by the Senate.

In 1999, a Miami-Dade County jury held the leading tobacco companies liable for various illnesses of Florida smokers. The class-action lawsuit, filed in 1994, was the first of its kind to reach trial.

In 2003, actor and dancer Buddy Ebsen, known to millions of TV fans as Jed Clampett of the "Beverly Hillbillies" and detective Barnaby Jones, died in Southern California. He was 95.

In 2005, terrorists struck the London transit system, setting off explosions in three subway cars and a double-decker bus in coordinated rush-hour attacks. Fifty-two people were killed and more than 700 injured.

In 2009, thousands of figures from the worlds of entertainment, politics, sports and activism jammed into Los Angeles' Staples Center and about 250,000 others gathered outside the building for a public memorial service for pop icon Michael Jackson.

In 2010, a Paris court sentenced former Panama ruler Manuel Noriega to seven years in prison for money laundering. He was convicted of funneling about $3 million of Colombian drug money into French bank accounts.

In 2011, a federal appeals court barred further enforcement of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members, with the "don't ask, don't tell" policy scheduled to end on repeal in September.

In 2012, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts married his longtime partner, Jim Ready, in a ceremony officiated by Gov. Deval Patrick.

In 2013, Andy Murray became the first British player in 77 years to win the men's singles title at Wimbledon, defeating Serb Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the championship match.

-- In 2016, a gunman opened fire at an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas, killing four police officers and one transit officer, and injuring seven others. Police killed the gunmen, who was holed up in a parking garage, using a robot strapped with an explosive.

A thought for the day: Benjamin Franklin wrote, "We are all born ignorant but one must work hard to remain stupid."